1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to decorating plates covering wall mounted electrical boxes supporting wiring devices including switches, relays and AC outlets including the switches operating keys.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Decorating plates or frames surrounding the switches, relays and AC outlets including decorative keys that are used for switching on-off electrical appliances such as lights, water boiler, air conditioners, heaters and any other electrical equipment and appliances in residences, offices, public building, businesses, hotels, restaurants and the like are very well known. The well known decorative plates, panels, frames and key covers are injected by varying plastic materials in different colors, shapes and sizes. Such decorative finishing are inexpensive, with most of the known covers and keys are known to be injected in white or off-white color, such as light beige but are also available in different hue or tints.
Other known decorative covers combine tinted glass frames in combination with plastic injected base keys. Such combined glass covers or frames with plastic injected keys are costly and rarely used in newly built building mainly because of costs.
The architects do prefer to use such decorative glass cover, but give-in because of budget overruns and other pricing constraint.
The major reason for the higher cost is the processing cost of cutting and polishing the side surfaces of commonly provided square or rectangular shape of the glass or crystal frame, but mostly the higher cost is in the cutting of the inner square or rectangular opening for each or combinations of AC outlet and switch keys.
The inner cutting or opening is processed by a rotating diamond grinder, controlled by X-Y table movement, but the four corners of the inner cut remain rounded, depending on the diameter of the grinder. Attempts to cut precision straight square corners known as right angle are literally impossible or will be extremely expensive, by using extremely thin grinder or cutting via multi steps with rotating blades.
The sharp right angle corners are needed for the esthetics and this is solved by an introduction of a decorative thin plastic frames molded to provide adequate 90° edges and corners to the cut opening with rounded inner corners. The injected square or rectangular frames are decoratively surrounding the outlets and each individual key, but are bulging and deface the flat surface of the cover. This creates an architectural problem.
Electrical grids and wiring devices for home or business premises are differently structured from automated control, wherein the electrical power via manual control (switches) is fed via the commonly installed switches in the electrical wall boxes, the home automation power is fed through relays mounted in the electrical cabinets. The change from the wall boxes to the electrical cabinets is due to the rigid rules, laws and building codes that prohibit the introduction of low voltage control wires into the wall boxes containing AC wiring devices and/or AC wires.
The electric feed from a main or sub electrical cabinet via automation relays require control panels or keys to operate or engage the relays in the cabinets. The automation relays are operated by a low voltage DC power and are controlled via bus line. This creates a state in which the commonly used standard switches are replaced by control keys, propagating control signals including RF signals or optical signals, and wherein the known toggle or rocker keys are replaced by touch panels, touch pads or key pads.
This is fundamental basic change in the structured electrical systems that involves decoration issues. Touch panels and key pads are known to be flat throughout with some are using flat glass plates for the touch pads. Such designed glass pads are a problem for homogenous finishing and color matching, wherein even if the pads sizes can be made equal to the frame size of the standard wiring devices, the architectural finishing will not be pleasing.
It would be meaningful advantage to provide lower cost glass decorating panels and keys that can be made common in size, color and shape and include manual switches, hybrid switches, power outlets, touch pads, key pads all in a matching flat surfaces, a novel architectural and electrical wiring devices in pleasing combinations.
The U.S. Pat. No. 7,649,727 introduced a new concept whereby single pole dual throw (SPDT) relay connected to a commonly used SPDT switch or dual poles dual throw (DPDT) switch enabling to switch the electrical appliances or lights manually via the commonly installed switch and remotely via the home automation controller. The SPDT and DPDT switches are known also as two way or four way switch respectively.
Further, the U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,639,907, 7,864,500, 7,973,647, 8,041,221, 8,148,921, 8,170,722, 8,175,463, 8,269,376, 8,331,794, 8,331,795, 8,340,527, 8,344,668, 8,384,249, 8,441,824, 8,442,792, 8,742,892, 8,930,158, 9,018,803, 9,036,158, 9,219,358, 9,257,251 and 9,281,147 disclose home automation controls, connections, switches and relays and accessories for operating electrical appliance via add-on devices such as the SPDT and DPDT relays or current drain sensors, RFID tags for identifying the load and operating appliances via hybrid switches including hybrid switches operated via mechanically latching relays.
The referenced U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,742,892, 8,930,158, 9,018,803, 9,036,158, 9,219,358, 9,257,251 and 9,281,147 further disclose touch screen, push switches, AC outlets and intelligent wall boxes for supporting the above switches and power outlets. The switches, keys, push, rocker or toggle and the entire assembly including the AC outlets are well known to be attached by mechanical locks and/or by screws and are covered by a decorative frame, with the keys of the switches protruding through the central opening and are operated by push or toggle or rocker action.
The above listed US patents and many pending applications in other countries disclose an add on or a combination of switches and/or power sockets, which all teach substantially advanced residence and other building automation. But little is disclosed or teach a given structure or method for providing low cost decorating panels and keys made out of glass or crystals, or made by other decorative flat molded panels and there is a need for an architectural improved panels, frames and the operating keys to be more contemporary appealing within the interiors of premises.